 Bobby Beck got his start in the animation industry when he
landed a job at a local San Francisco game company. From there, he
was hired by Tippet Studios in 1997 and worked as an animator on
the feature films My Favorite Martian and Virus,
before moving to Los Angeles in 1998, where he worked at Walt
Disney Feature Animation on Dinosaur. In 1999, Beck was
offered his dream job at Pixar Animation Studios. There, he worked
as an animator on Toy Story 2, The Incredibles, Cars,
Boundin, and as a senior animator/character developer on
MONSTERS, INC. and FINDING NEMO. Beck co-developed
Boo from MONSTERS INC. and on the FINDING NEMO, he
was the developer on Nemos character. In September 2004, Beck left
Pixar to devote himself full-time to running AnimationMentor.com
as its CEO/President. It was one of the hardest decisions of his
life. He embarked on a second wave of self-schooling studying
business development, leadership, administration and education
and began working with a business coach. It is a process that
continues through today as Beck and his team at AnimationMentor.com
strive to provide the best character animation education possible
to their students.
How was the idea about an online animation school born?
There has been a huge void in animation education for a long time.
It seems that the trend has moved further-and-further away from the
art and craft of animation and has moved more-and-more towards
computer software experts. AnimationMentor.com was born from this
void. My partners Shawn Kelly (animator, Industrial Light & Magic),
Carlos Baena (animator, Pixar Animation Studios) and myself had
been teaching for some time and felt that there was something
fundamentally flawed with animation education. Many students who
wanted to become animators had to focus on everything except the
things they should have been focusing on; animation, storytelling
and filmmaking. Animation schools tend to build curriculums that
give everyone a general knowledge about many things but not
specialized skills in the proper areas. This is super fine for
people who want to get into the industry in any way they can. But
our challenge and goal is not in creating more worker bees; it
has been to help create the next generation of storytellers,
filmmakers and artists. Our school is designed with that purpose in
mind. If students want to come to our school to learn XYZ of
certain software packages they may be disappointed as we are
looking to train artists, not computer technicians. We feel we can
teach the software to students in a matter of hours but the
concepts and many facets of developing true understanding and
construction for animation, storytelling and filmmaking take time
and is where our students spend the majority of their efforts. As
any student in our school will tell you we push them to think and
to really see the world around them and incorporate this into their
work. That is the stuff that people want to see. They dont care if
something moves nice they want to see something that entertains
them and feels real to them on some level. We decided the best way
to build the school would be online. Online there are no geographic
boundaries so we can provide this education to a worldwide audience
without them having to move halfway across the globe to receive it,
and yet still feel very connected to the learning experience. Also,
the Internet community has always been near and dear Shawn, Carlos
and my heart. Its where we learned a lot about animation when we
were starting out and theres so much energy and connection between
people online; sometimes more than having physical interaction,
say at a typical brick-and-mortar school. What drove you to take
part in this? What drove me to take part of this amazing
adventure is that it simply needed to be done, and it needed to be
done by people who really care about animation and the art and
craft of animation. It needed to be built by people who animate
professionally day-in and day-out for years who really understand
what the industry needs from new fresh talent. On a personal level
I feel teaching someone continues to give back to me in such a
real way. As teachers we are helping people change their lives
and give them hope and a new direction, and words fail to describe
that feeling. Its truly amazing! And finally it would not only
bring students resources that they would otherwise not be exposed
to, but it would unite top professional animators around the world
and give them a place to share their knowledge for the first time
regardless of what studio they worked for. Its like a giant
animators playground and we can all share and learn and feel good
about driving the art, craft and language of animation forwarding a
huge way! Woo Hoo!
Did you expect the school would be a success, or were you taking
a big risk? We definitely took the risk, but at the same time
we just followed our hearts and we hoped people would want
something like this. We were very idealistic in the beginning in
terms of how much time and effort it would take to create something
this ambitious. Luckily we are very driven and we care very much
about quality in every aspect of our lives. So whenever someone
would get burned out the other two would step in and help pull the
spirits back up and provide encouragement. It took us over 2
years to create AnimationMentor.com before we ever announced it to
the public. Our picky eyes and attention to detail are some of the
many things that have made this a great experience thus far. Now
that you've had some real "hands on" experience with the students,
would you say AnimationMentor.com is what you expected, or did it
exceed your expectations? It is far better than our
imaginations could have dreamed of. On a professional level we are
getting the support of the entire industry in such an inspiring way
that we are committed to making it as amazing as it can possibly
be. AnimationMentor.com has exceeded our expectations in ways we
simply never could have planned of. The weekly emails I get from
our students around the world are breathtaking. It has really
changed peoples lives and this is so real. On paper you can say
it, but when you hear it and see it from people it moves me more
than anything I can explain. Its like when you work really hard on
a movie for years and then it comes out and people really like it,
but after a few weeks the buzz dies down and then you just know in
your heart that it was a great experience. With teaching it
continues to give back to you daily. And that keeps us on our toes,
because we not only have our students for 18 months but we feel
they are like our family and we want to see them succeed. I guess
its that feeling of spending so much time and effort on making
something cool but then it starts to take on a life of its own and
at that point it becomes bigger than anything you could have ever
planned for. How did teaching in a traditional classroom setting
compare to teaching online classes? I have taught at schools,
conferences and animation studios. I never experienced teaching
animation online before we decided to build AnimationMentor.com.
But we did do a lot of research and planning before we dove into
taking on such a big challenge. At the end of the day we decided to
build our school from scratch. The technology and curriculum have
been built from the ground up and many people have worked long and
hard to make sure it is as solid as it can possibly be. I've
been following AnimationMentor.com since the beginning, and there's
a question I've had since the first day. As a student, I would be
given the opportunity to learn animation in any medium I wanted
(traditional, stop motion, or 3D). Say, that I took Stop
Motion classes what method would I use to learn animation in
that medium? I just can't figure out a way to do the bouncing ball
with clay. Actually one of our students, Matt Strangio, did do
the bouncing ball exercise in stop motion. He used a piece of
Styrofoam for the background, a ball made of clay and a toothpick
that he stuck into the clay ball then into the foam as he captured
each frame of the animation with Monkey Jam, a free software used
to grab frames along with a web cam. It turned out amazing! That is
a true artist right there. Someone who goes outside of the box and
makes it happen. All students of AnimationMentor.com have 24 hour 7
day a week unlimited access to our video training for stop motion,
computer and traditional animation techniques. These techniques
give the students enough information for them to start getting
their ideas out. The rest of their learning experience is focused
on building each individual and helping them to pull out their own
unique expression that they have inside them. No one told Matt how
to do the bouncing ball per se, but he figure it out based on what
he had seen in the training as well as putting his own creative
mind to work. Does the medium imply that [for example], a
traditional animation student would never use Maya during his time
at AM? Students can use any medium they want. They can use a
different medium on each assignment if they so choose and some do.
We encourage experimenting in different mediums, and ultimately
choosing one that they really like so they can develop their skills
further. What do you think sets AnimationMentor.com apart from
other animation schools (besides the fact that the mentors are
considered some of the best animators around the globe)? I
really truly feel that everyone involved in AnimationMentor.com
believe in making it the best school it can possibly be and thats
what really makes this school shine above and beyond anything we
could have ever imagined it to be. Its a school built by artists
for people who want to become artists. The community at
AnimationMentor.com is awe-inspiring. Students have built bonds
with each other that theyve never met in person yet they have
real relationships with them as they are all going through the same
experience. Thats the power of the Internet. Could you explain
the mentor-student interaction during the homework phase? What
about student-student interaction?
- Mentor-Student Interaction: Typically students start off
each week with a video lesson encompassing a specific topic. During
the homework phase we encourage the students to post their work on
their workspace page to get feedback from other students as this is
the fastest way to get feedback. Since we are an online community
there are always students online. We also have what we call Campus
Mentors who cruise the campus and comment on student work that is
posted on students workspace pages. Campus Mentors are also high
level professional animators, so having them available to give
added feedback is yet another big bonus for students. Students can
email their mentor if they get stuck, but because all mentors are
currently working professionals they tend to save their responses
for the Live Q&A web conferences they have weekly with their
students. When the student puts up their work to be reviewed by
their mentor, the mentor will then give the student a video based
critique (eCritique TM) of their work where the mentors can talk,
act out and draw over a students work. This gets recorded and saved
for each student so they can view it as many times as theyd like
and it is also viewable by every other student so they learn from
each other and each others mentors! The live Q&A sessions give the
students one-on-one time with their mentor to gain further insight
into the lesson of each week as well as ask more specific questions
about their work and any other problems they are having. Many
assignments span several weeks in length so the back and forth
process on any given assignment is actually pretty big. Those who
are more active in the school will get the most out of it, but that
goes for anything in life, you get what you put into
something.
- Student Student Interaction: Besides the above
interaction, students can also post on the forum, use text chat to
talk to their fellow students and can go into the Live Q&A sessions
up to 1 hour before the session begins to give students more time
with their fellow classmates and they can stay in as long as they
want after a session has ended. From our school students have been
organizing student gatherings around the world that are happening
regularly and are extremely successful. The most recent was in
England where students came from Italy, France, Switzerland and
Iceland to meet and share in their experiences! For this event we
organized a tour with Framestore (an England-based visual effects
studio). The event was a huge success. Again, we really do look at
our students as family and we continue to look for ways to bring
them closer together constantly. There are many more great things
in the works.
What does it take to be an Animation Mentor? Enthusiasm,
passion for the art and craft of animation, a minimum of 3 years
professional experience in the animation industry, previous
teaching experience is a big plus and an ability to communicate
ideas into words. We are very selective of our mentors and we work
hard to try and pick the best people that we possibly can whose
work also reflects some of the best character animation on the
planet today. Finally, do you have any advice you would give to
anyone trying to get a job in the animation industry? I always
talk about the 3 Ps; Practice, Perseverance and Personality. You
have to develop all three of these skills simultaneously. I came to
animation not being the most skilled artist, yet over the last
decade I have, with the help of many great and talented people,
learned to develop these skills and still continue to refine them
on a daily basis. You can never learn everything, and shouldnt
think that you can. Also, dont believe anyone if they say you
cant do it, because you can if you believe in yourself. Theres
times where your demo reel will get rejected a dozen times in a row
and you have to continue to believe in your work and continue to
make it better, then try again. The hard work will pay off if you
stick to it. We invite you to visit:
All supporting images are copyright, and cannot be copied,
printed, or reproduced in any manner without written permission
from the artist.
 Animation Alley is a regular featured
column with Renderosity Staff Writer Sergio Rosa [nemirc].
August 22, 2005 |
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